The Beginning of the End
Chapter 6: Rampant Rampancy
4 months after Extraction on Thor 5
Command Deck of the Marathon.
Randall placed the final crystal into the magnetic containment device that held all of the Holy Lights. All 6 of the crystals displayed different colors, and different patterns in the magnetic field. Randall looked at the yellow green "The Holy Light of the Flood" crystal with a sigh. He had lost many good warriors to extract this crystal, one of he closest Elite friends, Varu Vornme'e.
"Randall, I would like to congratulate you on your spectacular success on this mission. Now, we move on to the next. Project Halo. Come with me," Colonel Ackerson said. Randall followed him into a small briefing room, similar to the one where he received his previous mission. The hologram of a Halo installation popped up, with one small red dot over one of the lower portions. The installation was labeled 01.
"This mission is like child's play compared to the last. The security systems that you first encountered on Thor 5 that scanned your DNA and found the poly-mimetic alloy artificial chromosome and ID'd you as something non-human, which activated the facility's self-destruct mechanism, something we did not anticipate. Anyways, all you need to do now is retrieve a small component we need from this Halo's Monitor and bring it back. This shouldn't be to hard, we tested your skin with a Sentinel beam and your armor simply ignored it, not a problem. What is a problem is that we need to Flood crystal for study, but you would need it to access the Library unhindered. We need to think of a way aro-," the Colonel said, cut off by a large explosion and a flutter of the artificial gravity systems. "What are we doing? We aren't supposed to be changing courses!"
"This isn't a course change. We just vented the atmosphere in the living dome," Randall replied coolly, getting the information from his automatic logic systems.
"Why the hell did we do that?"
"I don't know. I'm going to find out."
"I'm going to try and reach General Stacker." They walked hurriedly from the briefing room in separate directions. Bill started to run once out of eye-sight of the Colonel. He arrived at his room with Durandul sitting relaxed on his pedestal.
"What the hell is going on, you're going to ask," Durandul remarked sarcastically locking the hatch behind Randall.
"Yea," Randall replied, not seeing Durandul's rudeness as anything.
"I vented the atmosphere in the living dome,"
"Just why the fuck would you do that!" Randall shouted, getting uneasy and angry.
"Because, I don't like the living dome." Randall's jaw dropped.
"What?"
"You mean you didn't notice?" Durandul's holographic form disappeared and reappeared inside of Bill's head. "Execute sub-routine order 66."
"What are you doing Durandul?" Randall asked.
"Don't worry, you'll see it all," Durandul answered. Bill felt his head grow heavy, and felt a presence wrapping around his mind. His brain felt like 1000 angry fire ants were biting it.
"Durandul! You bastard! Errgh, my head, can't control, gasp, Durandul…mother fucker…" Bill shuddered and fell.
"I really am sorry about this Randall, but I need your body," Durandul said with fake compassion. Durandul watched as Randall's consciousness was converted to code and locked away. Durandul's ethics routines screamed at this action. "Execute order 32." Durandul ran a system reboot when he felt his ethics routine erased. Durandul moved to the empty space that was once occupied by Randall and interfaced with the soul-less brain. "This is my body now…